Donald Glover Finally Gets His Chance to Play Spiderman
OK everyone step into the wayback machine so we can set this up for the new kids in the room.
A few years before the casting was announced for the critically panned Amazing Spiderman (You should really read Film Critc Hulk’s “237 Burning Question for Amazing Spiderman 2” piece. It does an amazing job breaking down why the new films are such a disgrace to Peter Parker, Spiderman lore and audience intelligence) there was a HUGE movement started by Donald Clover, but soon got mainstream attention for the Community star to play Spiderman in the new films. People were really excited about this, Glover as Spiderman would really make this reboot actually something new. Plus, there is history of Marvel changing the gender, race or sex of characters to much praise and success in comics and on screen – most notably Sam Jackson Nick Fury. People really wanted see this happen.
Unfortunately, Sony went with the “safe.” Marvel on the other hand, rebooted their new Ultimate Spiderman comic with a new Spiderman starring Miles Morales,a mixed Black/Hispanic teenage modeled partly after Glover. This book, since its debut, has continues to be the crown jewel of the Ultimate line. Fast forward to today. Miles Morales will be making his animated debuted, voiced by Donald Clover on Disney XD’s Ultimate Spiderman August 31, at 9AM.
It’s great that Glover is finally getting a play Spiderman, even better it’s a Spiderman Marvel inspired after him; however, it’s still a little bittersweet it’s on The Ultimate Spiderman, a show known more for it’s slapstick comedy than compelling storytelling… That’s another discussion, we are here to enjoy this moment and be happy for Donald.